Professional fire-fighters routinely need or desire almost immediate access to interior regions of burning structures or other materials. The discharge of fire-fighting fluid(s) to the exterior or otherwise readily accessible surfaces may be insufficient to so much as mitigate a fire raging on nearby, but obstructed or otherwise inaccessible, surfaces. Delays in reaching critical areas often allow an otherwise controllable fire to spread and/or intensify exponentially, increasing the property loss and/or risk to human life. An insignificant fire can develop into a conflagration while fire-fighters wait for ancillary equipment.
Surfaces or regions that are routinely inaccessible to professional fire-fighters equipped with conventional primary or basic equipment (often as would be the fire-fighters deployed from the first engine that arrives at the site) include, without limitation, (a) obstructed interiors and/or regions, for instance those behind barred doors, behind barred windows, behind walls, roof structures or other structural barriers without sufficient entry routes, below or beneath docks, rail trestles and the like, within automotive vehicles, railway cars, aircraft, storage tanks and the like, (b) surfaces and regions beyond the reach of conventional equipment discharges, for instance areas not within a direct line from the discharge source, and (c) regions of high risk to a fire-fighter's safety. In some or even many instances an inaccessible area could be considered obstructed and/or beyond reach and/or a high-risk zone, and in such instances the selection of categorization is generally of no significance regarding the present invention.
A means for providing quick access to inaccessible regions is of limited or no value unless such means can also provide effective fire-fighting discharges in those regions under rigorous conditions.
A means for providing quick access to inaccessible regions is of limited or no value unless such means can be readily and reliably deployed under rigorous conditions.
A means for providing quick access to inaccessible regions is of limited or no value unless such means is sufficiently versatile so that it is not itself a specialty or ancillary equipment not available to the first fire-fighters on the scene.
A means for providing quick access to inaccessible regions is of limited or no value unless it can be effectively used in both a hands-on mode and in a remote (hands-off) mode.
A means for providing quick access to inaccessible regions is of limited or no value unless such means can be readily and reliably deployed in combination with conventional auxiliary equipment and conventional fire-fighting water or fluid sources.
Unlike unrestricted manipulation of conventional fire hoses and nozzles, the ability to manipulate and/or change the discharge direction or reach of a means for providing quick access to inaccessible regions once it is deployed will frequently be limited or non-existent. As mentioned above, there is little or no value unless the means can readily and reliably provide effective fire-fighting discharges in those regions. That in turn depends on whether the means provides a sufficient spray pattern without post-deployment manipulation or adjustment, and whether the means resists post-deployment whipping and other high-pressure static instabilities, particularly when deployed in the remote or hands-off mode.
Varied fluid spray patterns are known for less rigorous applications that can tolerate the concomitant structural complexities of these devices. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,387, issued Sep. 7, 1999, inventor Zink et al., describes a nozzle with three-dimensional spray pattern for internal cleaning wherein the divergent spray patterns are provided by a rotating water-jet. U.S. Pat. No. 5,505,383, issued Apr. 9, 1996, inventor Fischer, describes a fixed sprinkler head for discharging fine droplets over perhaps a sixteen-foot range, with a lead-in narrow neck that could easily be plugged or clogged by small foreign objects and with vertical side fins. U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,993, issued Feb. 28, 1995, inventor Fischer, describes a fire-protection fixed sprinkler head having a diffuser element via a deflector loading screw to provide a wide spray pattern mist and vertical side fins. U.S. Pat. No. 4,828,182, issued May 9, 1989, inventor Haruch, describes a nozzle employing compressed air, a complicated series of valves and a deflector flange to obtain a cooling mist having a relatively flat, wide spray pattern for cooling air conditioning systems and the like, not for fire-fighting purposes. U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,661, issued Sep. 13, 1983, inventor Tokar, describes a fixed sprinkler head with pair of side fins plus directional orifices/deflector producing a conical spray pattern.
Mechanical means to resist high water-pressure instabilities of a fire-fighting hose and nozzle are known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,887,801, issued Mar. 30, 1999, inventor Stevens, which describes a nozzle add-on (added upstream of a tip-discharge nozzle) which is comprised of a complex series of chambers to control high-pressure spray recoil. That combination does not provide any means for quick access to inaccessible regions.
Means to break down barriers in combination with a fire-fighting nozzle are known. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,857,629, issued Jan. 12, 1999, inventor Miller et al., describes a conical penetration nozzle having thirty-two serially and concentrically arranged ports, including ports that discharge in a backward direction, the combination of port arrangement and nozzle rotation (rotational couplings and thrust-producing nozzle means) stabilize the nozzle against whipping. The nozzle assembly can be launched or otherwise delivered to a target. U.S. Pat. No. 5,839,664, issued Nov. 24, 1998, inventor Relyea, U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,756, issued Apr. 12, 1994, inventor Relyea et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,245, issued May 18, 1993, inventor Relyea et al., each describe a piercing nozzle for fire-fighting, operable from an vehicle-mounted aerial boom, having a pointed, and possibly hardened steel, tip and discharge orifices upstream of tip. U.S. Pat. No. 4,485,877, issued Dec. 4, 1984, inventor McMillan et al., describes a conical penetration nozzle primarily for fire control behind barriers or within piles with opposed orifices upstream of conical tip providing sideways curtains of spray. There are of course instances when a nozzle that can be used to attack and thereby remove a barrier, even from a vehicle mounted aerial boom, is of value. Nonetheless, it is believed that none of these prior art devices can provide, in a single structure, (a) the effective fire-fighting discharges in inaccessible regions, (b) the ease and reliably of deployment, (c) the versatility, (e) the hands-on mode and the remote or hands-off mode, (f) the ready and reliable deployment in combination with conventional auxiliary equipment and conventional fire-fighting water or fluid sources, (g) the a sufficient spray pattern without post-deployment manipulation or adjustment, and (h) the resistance to post-deployment whipping and other high-pressure instabilities, which are all provided by the present invention, as described below.